Monday, October 15, 2007

The latest NEPA/PHCN scam

I have hit upon what I believe to be a scam by our UNfriendly suppliers of power. I stand to be corrected, but I think that the coincidence is a bit much.

About 2 years ago, my friend who lives about 2 streets away from me started coming to my house at irregular intervals to do her ironing, blending and electricity connected thing-a-bobs. Her reason was that NEPA had started a load shedding schedule on their street. The explanation from NEPA went along the lines of the transformer needing servicing and how it was overloaded. The load shedding continued for months until the residents on the street got tired and contributed money which they gave to NEPA officials to fix their ailing transformer. I was not privy to how much was spent but within weeks their transformer was transformed.

Move on to about a year ago. An acquaintance who lives a street away mentioned in passing that they had a load shedding situation going on. Apparently, their transformer needed servicing as well. I caught up with her about 2 months ago and guess what? The street formed an organization and took it upon themselves to contribute about N1, 000,000 for the transformer to be fixed. NEPA officials gave them a ballpark figure for the repairs. It took them a year of levying every flat/house on the street to come up with the money. The very week I ran into her was the week that NEPA had stopped shedding their load. Mere weeks after money had changed hands.

Now here’s the thing. NEPA/PHCN started load shedding on my own street about 3 months ago. I have been made to understand that there is some special oil in the transformer that needs to be changed. Apparently it has not been changed since the ‘70s and now the transformer is unable to carry the load it normally carries. Yaddah yaddah yaddah...

I smell a rat, a fish and a skunk.

PS: Special thanks to the guys at Oyibosonline.com for thinking my post My Life in the Niger Delta worthy of wider readership. I noticed a spike in the number of hits my blog got and traced it back here.

Chei! Naija NEPA/PHCN! Does anyone in your area know someone high in NEPA? That might be able to help as the senior officers might not even know of this load sheddign palaver in your area, someone needs to raise some dust i think! It's sad though that one needs to know someone before settling an issue

@ Oracle: There is absolutely nothing wrong with making money. However, I object to having money made illegally and especially by way of theiving from the populace. If their salary is not enough (who's is?) they should do what people like me do. Invest in your education and move to a better paying job eith your qualifications.

@ Writefreak: We used to have a NEPA official on my street. Moved away now so there is no-one to fight our battles. It really is sad that there is apparently nothing you can do in this country unless you know "someone". This is why I definitely support privatisation. This civil service mentality has to go if we are to move forward as a Nation.

@Solomonsydelle: We will see how that works out.

@ Writefreak: inmyheadandaroundme@gmail.com. Please send me a mail so that this sisteh can holla back with all her questions.

NEPA official moved away eh? probably why the transformer problem suddenly developed :)

No but seriously, this stuff has been going on in Lagos for aages. Transformers being stolen from one street and put on the next street when someone's been settled. same thing with NEPA landlines, remember? everyone trying to make a quick buck, forgetting to think about why they're in this rut in the first place and take their grievances to the right pp rather than steal from pp in the same predicament (i.e. pp who have to deal with being their own NEPA, water, diesel-supplying LGA).